Cockeyed

I leaned down with my head next to Hu

I heard an unaccented man’s voice, a bit gravelly, say that Mrs. Van Horn could not come to the phone because she was in the bathroom “taking a tinkle,” but he could prove that he was holding her hostage. He said that she was wearing a bathrobe and slippers and she was a short, heavy-set lady with blue eyes and gray hair and her hair had recently been “done.”

Hu

“If you want the old lady back in one piece,” the voice said,

“it’s going to cost you ten thousand dollars. Put the money in a paper bag with Mom written on it and leave it on the bench outside Price Chopper on Delaware Avenue at seven o’clock.

Then we will let her go. If you don’t do like I say, I might have to get rough with your mother. Punch her in the face or somethin’.”

Hu

Again, I tried to retrieve the caller’s number, but this number was blocked, too.

“Was this another one?” Art said. “A second kidnapper?”

“He said I should leave ten thousand dollars on a bench outside the Delaware Avenue Price Chopper. He sounded like a complete doofus. Artie, girl, I think we’re going to have to get an unlisted number. I’ll call Verizon tomorrow. They’d be closed today, it being Sunday.”

“This kidnapper was cheaper than the last one,” Antoine said.

CoCkeyed 83

“If your mom wasn’t in grave danger, you could almost shop around.”

I said, “This one did sound like a flake. If he’s somehow for real, he’ll call back. It’s possible the first call was also a hoax, but you shouldn’t take that chance. I’m going to call the police, Hu

“Oh, yes, Donald, I suppose you must. Do whatever you think is best.”

I made the call on my cell phone and luckily was able to reach my friend in the Albany PD. I explained the situation, and he said he would (a) notify the Rensselaer sheriff of this new development and (b) explain to the detectives on duty in Albany that they needed to set up a trap on Hu

Just as I was finishing up with the cop, there was a ruckus in the living room, and the kitchen door flew open. An excited Marylou Whitney came crashing into the room bathed in white light, which we soon saw was from the television lights mounted atop a video camera. She was trying unsuccessfully to keep a pinch-faced, scowling middle-aged man in a jacket and tie from entering the kitchen with her. The man looked at Hu

Antoine said, “Who is this Froot Loop?”

“Girl, I guess you don’t watch Focks News,” Hu

down here and I’ll pour you a drink. Or would you prefer some weed?”

ChAPteR tweLve

“Hu

Beady-eyed and blotchy, O’Malley thrust a microphone at Hu

Hu

“Careful what you say, luv,” Art said. “You know what happened last time. Nelson and Lawn might be tuning in.”

“Anyway,” Hu

“That’s right, Hu

“Anderson Cooper’s ratings are a tenth of what mine are,”

O’Malley snorted. “Now, you have not answered my question. I am going to ask it one more time. Have you or have you not been talking to All-Too-Real TV about a reality show deal? Just answer the question. Is your answer yes, or is it no?”

“I don’t think you should talk to this liar,” Antoine said. “Bill O’Malley called President Obama a communist.”

“I never said any such thing. But he is a socialist, and he is destroying our country and robbing us of our precious freedoms.

But right now taking my country back is beside the point. You still have not answered my question, Huntington. Are you in 86 Richard Stevenson

negotiations for a reality show on All-Too-Real? Keep in mind before you answer that anything you say can be held against you in the Focks News court of public opinion.”

Marylou said, “Hu

Hu

I said, “O’Malley, go fuck yourself.”

“Who are you, mister? Maybe you need to have your mouth washed out with soap.”

Jane Trinkus said, “Should I leave that in? I can bleep it just enough to get it by the fCC, but viewers will know that you have been disrespected, Bill. It makes you look small, but it’s great television.”

Now another cameraman appeared in the doorway, and the young woman from Cha

“Tragic?” Hu

“No, I mean to say, tragic that she is still missing. She is, isn’t she? Or have there been late-breaking developments?”

Waggling her fingers, Trinkus said, “Oh, there have been developments, all right. How do you spell h-o-A-x?”

O’Malley shook his head vehemently at Trinkus and mouthed Our story.

Now the two large Gray Security guys came in, and I said,

“These media folks need to be led out of here. They are trespassing.”

“Let’s go,” said the bigger of the two men.

“Who do you work for, Hugo Chavez?” O’Malley said to the CoCkeyed 87

security man, who looked Hispanic but had given no indication that he might be Venezuelan.

Now O’Malley turned and looked directly into the Focks camera and intoned, “Obama’s America. The America of Barack Hussein Obama is the America you are witnessing first-hand. This is what the United States of America has come to. The Founding Fathers must be weeping, and so, my friends, am I.”